Dear Sparkle: Why Is My Human Mad That I Bit Her, When It Is Her Fault?

Dear Sparkle,

My human is mad at me because I bit her — she had to see a doctor and take some sort of pills for a week. While I can understand the hating the pills part (I know from experience that is no fun!), I don’t understand why she should be mad — it is her fault she got bit! She should know better than to rub my tummy. I was whapping my tail and even growling a bit and she totally ignored me, so what else was I to do? How do I convince my human that her ire is completely misplaced and unfair?

Signed,

Jaws

Dear Jaws,

With a name like that, are you sure you aren’t in the habit of biting your human? In any case, it is clear-cut: your human is at fault here and she has no right to be mad at anyone but herself. You told her to stop her inappropriate touching in a bunch of different ways and she paid no attention. And biting did make her stop, right? The rest of it — the doctor and the pills — is all on her.

Some humans, like your own, are just so clueless about kitty language. They can barely speak their own language, actually, and it seems like they often have a hard time understanding other humans, so it should come as no surprise that they are even worse about figuring out what you are trying to tell them. The growling and tail whapping you directed at your human were no doubt the last signals in a long time of indications that she was supposed to back off. You had probably already twitched your ears and flattened them, tensed up your whole body, dilated your eyes and maybe added some vocalizing behind your purring. Humans tend to think that when you are purring, you are happy, but sometimes we keep purring when we are annoyed! Humans don’t understand our meows, so I suppose we can’t expect them to understand our different purrs either.

The bottom line is if your human pays attention, she will know when to stop petting you, and that there are no-petting zones, like your tummy. If she keeps up with her annoying behavior, I don’t recommend biting — did you know that your bite could cause your human to develop a serious infection and she could even wind up in the hospital? And then who would feed you? So maybe if you see her hovering when you are lying on your back, you should just get up and go somewhere where she can’t touch you. As far as showing her the error of her anger, well, humans tend to think they are always right, even in instances like this one, where she is totally in the wrong. It is one of those things we kitties just have to deal with.
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